What Makes a Man: War
by SilkenNightmare
Summary: Young Rufus (after all, it is a series about him) and a game of chess. Suggestion of violence. Please review, please? =)


Disclaimer: Guess what! I don't own the characters.  
Authors Note: 2nd in the series (so far). If I have any facts off, I'm sorry, I didn't pay a lot of attention to timing in the game (stupid me). Oh yea, I apologize to anyone who doesn't like Tseng's character, but this does take place approxemently 10 years before the game. For anyone interested, I put Rufus at about 10 years old, but hey, you decide on whatever age you like best. 

  
  


What Makes a Man: War 

  
  
_"I don't want life to imitate art, I want life to _be_ art."_Postcards From the Edge 

  
"Check."  
  
Rufus' eyes snapped back onto the table. "Hm?"   
  
"I said: Check."   
  
"Oh, oh, yea," His white gloved hand rose silently and tapped aside the equally white piece. He looked back to the floor, lost in thought.   
  
Across the table his opponent watched, slightly amused, while his rook retreated to the black side of the board. He waited calmly for the blond boy to come back to himself.   
  
Rufus idly watched his shoes swing in the air an inch or so above the carpet, the chair was tall, and he was on the small side for his age. Not much of a surprise, considering how little he had eaten the first few years after his mother's death. The boy sighed, and leaned his elbows on the table, "My turn?"  
  
The young man across from him nodded.  
Rufus slid a pawn forward, making it an easy target for his opponent's bishop. Then settled his head on his hands.   
  
The bishop claimed the pawn, and stood safe, in the middle of the board. "You seem more distracted than usual today, Sir."  
  
Rufus looked up, "I'm pondering your lack of personality." He said, smiling to show it was a joke. "And please don't call me sir, its, well, its weird." Not that he was particularly 'normal'. He smiled serenely across the board at Tseng, youngest of the Turks, and his 'bodyguard' for the day. "None of the others call me sir," he added.  
  
"None of the others are assigned to protect you."  
  
"You mean baby-sit me." His father had made sure someone watched him at all times since his eating had dropped off three years before. Rufus' small size didn't upset the man, quiet the contrary, it made Rufus even more appealing to the cameras. However, if the boy starved himself to death, or into a hospital, it might draw more negative attention. And they couldn't have that, now could they?  
  
Rufus moved a knight next to Tseng's bishop.  
  
Tseng smiled and slid his bishop along the black tiles, letting it rest against the board's edge.  
  
Rufus leaned forward and moved his knight one space up and over three. To land neatly on a black rook. Then watched as Tseng's remaining rook moved forward, and into the white knight's line of attack. "Is this like war, Tseng?" He asked, moving his knight away from the rook, and the trap lying with it. "Sacrificing one thing to destroy another? Is this what's going on in Wutai?"  
  
"No. In war your Queen is shot by a pawn from another board, and your King is held hostage by the white bishops." The bitterness in the turks' voice surprised him.   
  
"Oh." He moved his queen back. "Then why do we play it? If not to learn strategy?" he rolled the 'r', in a mock of the way his father pronounced the word.  
  
"Because-" Tseng smiled, and something about the smile twisted Rufus' stomach. "Because its fun. Destroying something in a fair and civil manner."  
  
"Oh," Rufus said again, "Is that why?" He sat for a moment, seemingly lost in thought. He pictured Wutai, the way it looked in one of his books, green and quaint, with great mountains in the background. He pictured the buildings burning, and the villagers fighting against each other while the Shinra soldiers invaded.   
  
Rufus frowned, his eyes darkening. And, never once looking at the chessboard, reached out and knocked down his king. "I like things to be as they are."  
  
The ivory king fell silently, and lay, sacrificed by its god on the black tiles.   
  
  
  



End file.
